The Dark Knight: Too Dark?
On July 20, 2012, during a midnight showing of Dark Knight Rises, a crazed gun man opened fire on the unsuspecting audience members in Aurora, Colorado. Fifty-eight people were hurt and twelve were killed in the massacre. Because the shooting was affiliated with The Batman franchise of movies, many people began to ask if violent movies like this one cause outbreaks of violence. The public rose up to protect this beloved character and a war of rhetoric ensued, leaving many to ponder the comic book character and the movie versions of Batman. People began to wonder if Batman can exist without violence. I was fascinated by this response to a character that has been a part of our mythos for over sixty years. Having grown up watching the animated series and the reruns of the kooky sixties serials, Batman is a part of my identity. I was at a midnight showing of Dark Knight Rises and this act of violence shook me to my core. One good thing that came from the media coverage of the shooting was that it encouraged many to analyze a character that has been a part of us since childhood.
On the one hand, the character of the Batman was created out of violence. In every version of the story, whether the comic books, the cartoons, or the movies, the origin story is the same. Young millionaire Bruce Wayne loses his parents to violence. In some versions it is The Joker who kills them, leaving Bruce with the question “Ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?” In the Christopher Nolan movies, the Waynes are killed by a homeless man under the pay of the mob. Either way, Bruce is left an orphan in the care of his faithful butler, Alfred. This traumatic childhood experience fuels an older Bruce Wayne to use his money to fight crime and police the streets of Gotham City as a self-appointed vigilante.
One could argue that Bruce Wayne’s violent past drives him to non-violence. Batman uses tools and gadgets to track down criminals and usually leaves them incapacitated on the steps of the police precinct. He never kills. He works with Commissioner Gordon in a structured way, different from other crazed vigilantes or avenging angels. There is structure. There is order. In the Nolan franchise Bruce Wayne goes through training with Ra's Al Ghul that teaches him to let go of hatred and vengeance. He is forced to face his demons and move forward. When Al Ghul’s teachings become too over the top with arbitrary justice, Wayne leaves the mountain fortress, destroying Al Ghul’s lair, but saving his friend.
This leads many to point out that all of the followers of Al Ghul, and the decoy Al Ghul, all die in that fire. Death seems to follow Wayne. There is always collateral damage. Someone gets killed, buildings get destroyed, people get beat to a pulp. Most of these people are bad and this makes viewers argue that Batman only goes after the very evil. But innocents are also hurt. Wayne’s childhood friend and love interest Rachel dies in a plot to hurt Batman. People are kidnapped, held for ransom, placed in compromising positions just because they are dear to Wayne. Loving people leads to hurting people. What kind of a message is that?
Many people wonder if the battle raging in the heart of Gotham pushes people toward the darkness or if it pushes them away from it. The comic books are admittedly very dark, especially Frank Miller’s nineties revision The Dark Knight Returns. The movies are also dark, literally and figuratively. The actually lighting in many of the movies and animated films is a grey wash—causing everything to appear in the shadows. However, most Batman advocates (read fans) would argue that the power of Batman is his ability to shed light on the darkness, to sacrifice for change. Bruce Wayne immolates his own reputation, fortune, and desires in order to protect the greater good. These actions place him in what literature critics call the “Christ Figure” archetype; the brave man who sacrifices himself to protect others. In order for there to be a need for a savior, there has to be something dark that we must be saved from.
The discussion of Batman is not new. Since the 1954 publication of the book Seduction of the Innocent by German psychiatrist Fredric Herman, critics have viewed comic books as part of the subculture, an underground subversive movement that encourages violence and promiscuity. Many of deepest prejudices against Comic book heroes spring forth from Herman’s mania. Generations of scholars and fans have been citing for decades that Herman lacked any evidence for his accusations against the genre. He clumped superhero comic books with the racy pulp fiction of the time: gritty crime/detective penny dreadfuls and horror books. Many of the darkest indictments of fascism, rampant homosexuality, and un-American behavior are unfounded and undocumented. Herman has been discredited almost from the very first edition of the book. But his ghost lingers on. Many still claim that the violence and stereotypical misogyny of the genre make comic books and their heroes, like Batman, questionable for general audiences.
However, it can be argued that comic book heroes are the fairy tales of this high-tech age. Like fairy tales, comic books were created in a time when gender roles and attitudes about difference were narrow and stereotypical. However, the updates of these characters are relevant and telling. By analyzing what screenwriters and producers have chosen to keep and to change in the story lines, one can see characteristics of modern society being integrated into character arcs. The stories become self-made representations of what it means to be a member the modern world.
I believe that our society suffers from shallowness. When everything is ambiguous or someone tells us there is something wrong with us—we hide. Encouraging introspection about what our entertainment tells us about ourselves could help us deal with this social laziness. Batman is a symbol of our media choices. What does he tell us about ourselves? Batman is complex, shadowy, capricious. In essence, he is human. By diving deeper into our choices, our heroes, our symbols, our mythologies, we begin to understand ourselves. That understanding leads to change, especially if we don’t like what we see.
Batman is a social construction—a character created by the social forces of time and culture. Obviously he still appeals to our society. He is easily updated and still has cultural significance, as seen in the recent reboot by Nolan. As a millionaire, Bruce Wayne is the epitome of the American Dream—a dream that is imploding on itself because of corruption and entitlement. Batman is truly appealing in his fight against the most evil of villains and thus a hero to a society that is full of injustice; a society that is screaming for someone to save us all from the darkness in ourselves. He is no god or demi-god. He has no special powers. He is a human being who must fight the same things that society does: greed, violence, corruption, isolation, injustice. In order to truly be the answer to the call for a mortal hero, Batman must have a conglomeration of positive and negative traits so that he is truly a man—not a sun god from another planet, or someone given powers by magic potions or radioactive spiders.
The ultimate question that has caused so much controversy in the media since the Aurora Massacre is if Batman teaches people to embrace or abhor violence. It has been shown that people are affected by what they watch and read. Is Batman a hero or a cautionary tale? Is the fight for Gotham inspirational or detrimental to readers and viewers? The answer to these questions is that Batman is a socially constructed symbol of what is best and most evil about society. We need characters like Batman to show us the evil that is in ourselves, but also the possibility of salvation.
On July 20, 2012, during a midnight showing of Dark Knight Rises, a crazed gun man opened fire on the unsuspecting audience members in Aurora, Colorado. Fifty-eight people were hurt and twelve were killed in the massacre. Because the shooting was affiliated with The Batman franchise of movies, many people began to ask if violent movies like this one cause outbreaks of violence. The public rose up to protect this beloved character and a war of rhetoric ensued, leaving many to ponder the comic book character and the movie versions of Batman. People began to wonder if Batman can exist without violence. I was fascinated by this response to a character that has been a part of our mythos for over sixty years. Having grown up watching the animated series and the reruns of the kooky sixties serials, Batman is a part of my identity. I was at a midnight showing of Dark Knight Rises and this act of violence shook me to my core. One good thing that came from the media coverage of the shooting was that it encouraged many to analyze a character that has been a part of us since childhood.
On the one hand, the character of the Batman was created out of violence. In every version of the story, whether the comic books, the cartoons, or the movies, the origin story is the same. Young millionaire Bruce Wayne loses his parents to violence. In some versions it is The Joker who kills them, leaving Bruce with the question “Ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?” In the Christopher Nolan movies, the Waynes are killed by a homeless man under the pay of the mob. Either way, Bruce is left an orphan in the care of his faithful butler, Alfred. This traumatic childhood experience fuels an older Bruce Wayne to use his money to fight crime and police the streets of Gotham City as a self-appointed vigilante.
One could argue that Bruce Wayne’s violent past drives him to non-violence. Batman uses tools and gadgets to track down criminals and usually leaves them incapacitated on the steps of the police precinct. He never kills. He works with Commissioner Gordon in a structured way, different from other crazed vigilantes or avenging angels. There is structure. There is order. In the Nolan franchise Bruce Wayne goes through training with Ra's Al Ghul that teaches him to let go of hatred and vengeance. He is forced to face his demons and move forward. When Al Ghul’s teachings become too over the top with arbitrary justice, Wayne leaves the mountain fortress, destroying Al Ghul’s lair, but saving his friend.
This leads many to point out that all of the followers of Al Ghul, and the decoy Al Ghul, all die in that fire. Death seems to follow Wayne. There is always collateral damage. Someone gets killed, buildings get destroyed, people get beat to a pulp. Most of these people are bad and this makes viewers argue that Batman only goes after the very evil. But innocents are also hurt. Wayne’s childhood friend and love interest Rachel dies in a plot to hurt Batman. People are kidnapped, held for ransom, placed in compromising positions just because they are dear to Wayne. Loving people leads to hurting people. What kind of a message is that?
Many people wonder if the battle raging in the heart of Gotham pushes people toward the darkness or if it pushes them away from it. The comic books are admittedly very dark, especially Frank Miller’s nineties revision The Dark Knight Returns. The movies are also dark, literally and figuratively. The actually lighting in many of the movies and animated films is a grey wash—causing everything to appear in the shadows. However, most Batman advocates (read fans) would argue that the power of Batman is his ability to shed light on the darkness, to sacrifice for change. Bruce Wayne immolates his own reputation, fortune, and desires in order to protect the greater good. These actions place him in what literature critics call the “Christ Figure” archetype; the brave man who sacrifices himself to protect others. In order for there to be a need for a savior, there has to be something dark that we must be saved from.
The discussion of Batman is not new. Since the 1954 publication of the book Seduction of the Innocent by German psychiatrist Fredric Herman, critics have viewed comic books as part of the subculture, an underground subversive movement that encourages violence and promiscuity. Many of deepest prejudices against Comic book heroes spring forth from Herman’s mania. Generations of scholars and fans have been citing for decades that Herman lacked any evidence for his accusations against the genre. He clumped superhero comic books with the racy pulp fiction of the time: gritty crime/detective penny dreadfuls and horror books. Many of the darkest indictments of fascism, rampant homosexuality, and un-American behavior are unfounded and undocumented. Herman has been discredited almost from the very first edition of the book. But his ghost lingers on. Many still claim that the violence and stereotypical misogyny of the genre make comic books and their heroes, like Batman, questionable for general audiences.
However, it can be argued that comic book heroes are the fairy tales of this high-tech age. Like fairy tales, comic books were created in a time when gender roles and attitudes about difference were narrow and stereotypical. However, the updates of these characters are relevant and telling. By analyzing what screenwriters and producers have chosen to keep and to change in the story lines, one can see characteristics of modern society being integrated into character arcs. The stories become self-made representations of what it means to be a member the modern world.
I believe that our society suffers from shallowness. When everything is ambiguous or someone tells us there is something wrong with us—we hide. Encouraging introspection about what our entertainment tells us about ourselves could help us deal with this social laziness. Batman is a symbol of our media choices. What does he tell us about ourselves? Batman is complex, shadowy, capricious. In essence, he is human. By diving deeper into our choices, our heroes, our symbols, our mythologies, we begin to understand ourselves. That understanding leads to change, especially if we don’t like what we see.
Batman is a social construction—a character created by the social forces of time and culture. Obviously he still appeals to our society. He is easily updated and still has cultural significance, as seen in the recent reboot by Nolan. As a millionaire, Bruce Wayne is the epitome of the American Dream—a dream that is imploding on itself because of corruption and entitlement. Batman is truly appealing in his fight against the most evil of villains and thus a hero to a society that is full of injustice; a society that is screaming for someone to save us all from the darkness in ourselves. He is no god or demi-god. He has no special powers. He is a human being who must fight the same things that society does: greed, violence, corruption, isolation, injustice. In order to truly be the answer to the call for a mortal hero, Batman must have a conglomeration of positive and negative traits so that he is truly a man—not a sun god from another planet, or someone given powers by magic potions or radioactive spiders.
The ultimate question that has caused so much controversy in the media since the Aurora Massacre is if Batman teaches people to embrace or abhor violence. It has been shown that people are affected by what they watch and read. Is Batman a hero or a cautionary tale? Is the fight for Gotham inspirational or detrimental to readers and viewers? The answer to these questions is that Batman is a socially constructed symbol of what is best and most evil about society. We need characters like Batman to show us the evil that is in ourselves, but also the possibility of salvation.